It seems that everyday living gets more and more restrictive. The important question for a wine lover is, how can I get what I want to drink and for a wine retailer is, how to reach my consumers.

Source: Bevmo.com

Source: Bevmo.com

Slowly and steadily, wine merchants are switching to online wine delivery irrespective of big or small their businesses are.

Many out there are simply upping their game by getting into delivery services by adding additional hours to their services, extra weekends, slashing delivery fees, providing discounts etc. The faster and creative one will be, the more chances are to win the race of serving your customers at the right time.

With more isolation, digital retailers are doing brisk business. Last week, sales at national e-commerce site Wine.com and other sites like Drizly, Postmates, minibar, yummy.com were double what they were the year prior. Some of them even tripled last weekend.

Many small to big wine retailers in Chicago, LA, New York,and San Francisco are already into this “new normal” and have been trying different ways out.

Source: Drizly.com

Stores that don’t offer delivery are finding other ways to speak and connect with their consumers. The Hawthorn Bottle Shop & Tasting Room in Helena, MT is taking orders by telephone and offering curbside pickup.

It's important to accept that consumer demand for alcohol remains strong, evident in high traffic and velocity in off-premises. There is no firm timeline on when social-distancing measures or Self-isolation will end, resulting in consumers loading and stockpiling their pantries with alcohol.

Source: Vin_Chicago

Also, online alcohol sales skyrocketed by 243% over one week in the middle of March in the US, according to research from Nielsen .

Hence, it becomes really important for all wine retailers to stand out with their services. Adapting to digitalization and accepting the pandemic will make your services even better .

So here are few tips with some real retailer’s examples for all Wine Retailers out there  to improve and increase online wine delivery services :

1. Overall Online Services:

If you’re a store providing multiple services, enjoy that benefit now. Add beer, wine, liquor, and snacks to your customer’s door and take advantage of minimum order pricing and fulfilling multiple requirements. 

Drizly: Drizly is an online alcohol delivery service that partners with more than 2200 retailers to deliver wine, spirits, beer, and snacks at the consumer’s door. It’s available in 26 states in the USA. The site is also encouraging users to select contactless deliveries. 

Source: Drizly.com

2. Wine in demand:

If you've ever been in one of its stores, you know it has a wide variety to choose from, including domestic and craft beer and spirits. If you are looking for good wine, its Winery Direct deals let you mix six bottles to get a discount. Bottles start as low as $3.So, start selling bottle mix and smooth and ease down-selection process. 

Total wine: Total Wine has a wide variety of liquor, beer and wine, and offers same-day alcohol and snack delivery across 12 states, as well as shipping and in-store pickup.

Source: Totalwine.com

3. Discounts and Subscription:

Add discounts for next orders and free subscriptions. That will give your repeat customer business. 

Winc: Winc is a wine-of-the-month club and wine subscription service that has wine drinkers take a short quiz and offers recommendations that will match for a monthly subscription of wine awesomeness. You can also search the site for whatever you prefer - from red wine , to white etc. If you select more than four wines , you get free shipping each month, both from Winc’s own wine to other wineries.

Source: WINC

4. Fast delivery and local pick up:

Nothing can beat fast and safe delivery of orders. Improve your order and delivery pattern. Utilize offbeat hours and avoid rush hour. The more synchronized your delivery will be the more orders will come to your way. 

Saucey : Saucey offers half an hour (30 minutes)  delivery or two-day shipping of beer, wine, and liquor, with no delivery fees or order minimums. So, what you see is what you pay. It only operates in Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York City, Orange County, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, Silicon Valley and Washington, DC.

Source: Saucey.com

Wine.com: Online retailer wine.com lets you order bottles of wines and get it delivered at your doorstep or to one of those local pickup sites. You can also sign up for the StewardShip program, a one-year subscription is $49, and gets you free shipping all year. 

5. Easy Searchability:

Make your site stand out for its easy navigation and ability to quickly filter by type of alcohol, then store, country, size, container, and price.

Minibar: With operation in 18 states, Minibar promises to deliver great wine, beer ad spirits to the customer’s door. It also offers statewide shipping within three days , which currently is hampered due to increase in demands in COVID times. This site stands out due to to its searchability quotient  

Source: minibardelivery.com

6. Collab with Food delivery apps:

If your business never had an online delivery service, best for you will be to collaborate with any food and wine delivery apps. And get yourself started. Like: DoorDash, Postmates, Grubhub, Delivery.com and Instacart. Both Total Wine and BevoMo, for example, have partnerships with Instacart.

You can likely order drinks through your favorite food delivery app. Just open it up, navigate to the restaurant you want, and see if beer, wine or alcoholic drinks are available. Check out our list of best food delivery services here. 

Instacart, on the other hand, let you add wine, beer, and liquor to your grocery delivery in 14 plus states 

Source: InstaCart

7. Go digital:

Provide all necessary information and delivery details on your main website page. Remember to have a mobile-friendly website. 

7- Eleven: helps to keep its customer intact by providing an assurance that their services will be open as usual. They have made a 7NOW delivery option that mean “Contactless" Delivery & Payment Options. Along with the 7Rewards system to have more repeat customers.

Source: 7-Eleven

So, be happy serving customers. Be open for every phone call, delivery and purchase your customers make to keep your business running.